Mexican police official arrested at border

Updated 11:27 pm, Wednesday, April 11, 2012

A police official from the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas has been arrested in South Texas on drug trafficking charges.

Gilberto Lerma Plata was arrested Friday as he tried to enter the country at one of the international bridges in the McAllen area, according to online records and the U.S. Marshals Service.

He was indicted last year on conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana. He appeared in a McAllen federal court Monday, and a magistrate judge ordered him detained.

Media reports identify Lerma as a police commander in Tamaulipas, the state that stretches from Laredo to Brownsville on Texas' border with Mexico.

A spokesman for Tamaulipas' prosecutor said Lerma had been a member of law enforcement there, but referred other questions to U.S. authorities. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department said she couldn't comment.